Review: Chick-Fil-A's Icedream Floats And Spins Perfectly Combine Your Favorite Soda With Soft Serve

Chick-fil-A is known for many things, most notably its chicken nuggets, chicken sandwiches, waffle fries, and even its breakfast menu. Perhaps less known is the fast food chain's array of sweet treats, though fans are likely already familiar with the Icedream, Chick-fil-A's signature soft-serve-like dessert. Though Icedream isn't incredibly different from your standard vanilla soft serve, it's every bit as tasty, creamy, and rich as you'd expect.

As if the creamy Icedream wasn't enough on its own, Chick-fil-A has upped the ante by introducing Icedream Floats and Spins. These special treats take the soft serve goodness of Icedream and transform it into a more beverage-like dessert by adding soda to the mix. The result is either a classic Float flavored with your favorite fountain beverage, be it Coca-Cola, Dr Pepper, or even Powerade, or a Spin, which completely mixes your drink of choice and the Icedream to make one cohesive creamy beverage.

Though Icedream Floats and Spins are only available in select cities as of this writing, Chick-fil-A invited Tasting Table to sample the new treats at a location currently serving them. I tried both the Icedream Floats and Spins with two different sodas to determine if they might be something worth checking out, whether you live in a city that has them or if they see more widespread availability in the near future.

Some recommendations are based on firsthand impressions of promotional materials and products provided by the manufacturer.

Most of us are pretty familiar with a classic ice cream float, which is the combination of ice cream and soda, a treat you can both sip and scoop. Though traditional floats typically feature plain ice cream as opposed to soft serve, Chick-fil-A's Icedream version is a notably creamy take on a classic. You can order an Icedream Float with any fountain beverage that Chick-fil-A has available; options typically include Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola Cherry, Diet Coke, Coke Zero, Dr Pepper, Diet Dr Pepper, Hi-C fruit punch, Sprite, Fanta Orange, or Powerade Mountain Berry Blast.

Chick-fil-A's new Icedream Spin, on the other hand, captures the same flavors of the float but blends the soda and soft serve together, resulting in something that you can sip in its entirety. According to Chick-fil-A, an Icedream Spin is "hand-spun with your choice of fountain beverage for a creamy texture and delicious taste." So, unlike a more layered Float, the soda completely combines with the soft serve, resulting in a treat that's texturally something between a slushee and a milkshake. Like with the Floats, any of the aforementioned fountain beverages can be ordered in Spin form.

Availability for Chick-fil-A's new Icedream Floats and Spins is pretty limited right now. The chain is currently only testing the treats at certain locations in San Diego, Salt Lake City, Chicago, and Tampa. It's unknown exactly how long the Icedream Floats and Spins will be available in these cities, but they are certainly limited time for now — so if the city you live in is on the list, it may be worth checking if your local Chick-fil-A has the treats sooner rather than later.

As for price, both treats start at $4.35, though the ones I tasted at a Chicago location were $5.09 each. They only come in one size. While the final price will ultimately depend on your location, both the Floats and the Spins are the same price, regardless of what soda or beverage you choose.

There's no denying that root beer floats are perhaps the most ubiquitous of all the ice cream floats out there, but personally, I always seek out classic Coca-Cola when building such a treat. There's something about the flavor of Coke that pairs really well with vanilla ice cream (and especially with vanilla soft serve), so naturally, I knew I had to put such a soda to the test when trying Chick-fil-A's Icedream Float.

The presentation of the Coke Float was appealing, and it was abundantly clear that this treat was filled to the brim with Icedream. Overall, I found the taste of this Float to be really delicious and very true to what a Coca-Cola float should taste like. While some people enjoy how regular ice cream sort of hardens and crystalizes in a float, I especially appreciated the fact that the Icedream didn't harden in this one. Instead, it stayed super rich and creamy, while the acidic Coke added a nice contrast. This isn't the type of treat you can sip on, as the Icedream definitely overpowered the liquid. But for those who love a good float and don't mind digging in with a spoon, the Icedream Float with Coca-Cola is pretty hard to beat.

Unlike the Icedream Coke Float, which sort of had layers of soft serve and soda, the Icedream Spin with Coca-Cola featured both ingredients all blended up together. The resulting treat was something much more drinkable than the Float yet had similarly creamy flavors.

I really liked the fact that the Spin combined the soft serve and soda, which made for a cohesive, sippable treat that I really enjoyed. The texture was really interesting; overall it was more like a slushee, especially as I got further into the drink, but it had the creaminess of a milkshake to keep things interesting. I was a big fan of the texture, as it was unlike any drinkable ice cream treat I've had before.

The flavor of the Spin was also really delicious, though I do think the taste of the Coke got a little lost amid all the vanilla ice cream. (One of Coca-Cola's flavor notes is vanilla, anyway, so it makes sense that it all sort of blends together.) Nonetheless, this was one tasty treat that I would definitely enjoy again, though maybe I'd go for a different Coca-Cola flavor, like Cherry, for a little flavor boost from the soda itself.

I knew right off the bat that I wanted to try an Icedream Float with Coca-Cola, but as for my second flavor choice, I was torn between the other options at hand. I ultimately went with Fanta Orange because I knew its strong orange flavor would, at the very least, contrast nicely against the smooth, mellow vanilla Icedream. Plus, I figured that the concoction might end up tasting something like an orange creamsicle, which it very much did.

The sheer vibrancy of the Icedream Float with Fanta Orange was enough to intrigue me, and this treat definitely packed a lot of flavor. That orange soda is really potent stuff, so naturally, it brought that potency to the treat. I do think that sometimes the Fanta overpowered the soft serve just a smidge, making for an overwhelming orange flavor without a whole lot of creaminess to back it up. But, it was easy to just scoop up a little more soft serve to balance out the bite. Overall, I thought this was a tasty Float, and a good option for those who like bold flavors that might contrast with the Icedream rather than blend in with it.

While I found the Fanta Orange to be a bit overwhelming in the Float, it was super mellowed out in the Icedream Spin, something that I really appreciated. Like with the Coke Spin, blending the soda and soft-serve definitely tempered down the Fanta's flavor. While I thought that this maybe worked to a slight disadvantage with the Coke one, simply because the soda's flavor became a little lost, it worked out perfectly with the Fanta version.

This Spin truly tasted like an orange creamsicle, so anyone who is a fan of that flavor will appreciate this one. Again, the texture here was like a slushee but creamy, making for something a little more interesting than your average slushee or milkshake. While the Fanta flavor was subdued by the soft serve, I think it was mellowed out just enough to balance really nicely with the creamy flavors. Overall, this was a super solid treat that nicely balanced creamy vanilla with tart, acidic orange. Any Fanta Orange fan would likely appreciate this dessert, possibly more so than the Float version simply because it's balanced so nicely in Spin form.

After sampling a couple versions of Chick-fil-A's Icedream Floats and Spins, I feel confident that they're both treats I'd enjoy again in the future. The Floats were hard to beat, simply because they follow that irresistible ice cream float formula so well, resulting in a treat that's going to be tasty no matter the fountain beverage you mix in. 

The Spins were real stars of the show, however, and I found myself enjoying both the Coca-Cola and Fanta Orange Spins a little more than their Float counterparts. This isn't a slight to the Floats but rather extra recognition for the Spins, as they provided a unique texture that I found really appealing. I also tend to prefer treats that are drinkable, but if you like the experience of scooping out spoonfuls of soft serve, then the Float might better float your boat. Either way, both treats tapped into a winning combination of soda and soft serve, so if you're in a city that currently has these treats, it's worth checking them out for a little afternoon pick-me-up or sweet treat after dinner.